Book Review: Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape by Gregory Benford

Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape by Gregory Benford

Hardcover, 360 pages

Published January 2019 by Gallery / Saga Press

Professor Benford's career in science fiction is a long one, with decades of output but I have to admit that I have not read as many books in his catalog as I should've. The only one I am positive I read was his classic Timescape at some point in the 90's. This book is a thematic sequel, but you are fine reading this book as a stand-alone. Benford is a Physics professor at the University of California Irvine and most of his books take on a serious hard scientific stance. That said Rewrite might appear to be a departure. As it deals with issues of reincarnation, well sorta.

Don't get the wrong idea one writer's tale of reincarnation is this writer's tale of quantum entanglement and multi-verses. That is what we have here, I think this is not as scientific as some of Benford's work but what do I know? What I can tell you is the theme and idea are similar to Stephen King's 11/22/63 but more focused on the idea at its core while the SK novel was more about putting the characters through the idea. That is not to say that the characters are not good here, Charlie is well developed and many of the other characters are based on real-life friendships.

Rewrite is a true fantasy and the power of the first half of this novel is that the main character Charlie Moment gets a wish we all wish we had. A chance to go back and have a redo on life. He dies in a car accident in 2002 and wakes up on his sixteenth birthday in 1968. For the first half of the novel, Charlie stumbles through making the most of his second life. This time he has the memories and experiences of a full lifetime to draw upon. He becomes a better son, boyfriend and gets noticed as wise beyond his year's writer. Since Charlie was a movie buff in his former life he becomes a screenwriter and is back to write and develop many important films years. This means he also discovers Spielberg and becomes friends with several famous people and most exciting to this reader was Benford's real-life friends Philip K Dick and Robert Heinlein.

To me, the best elements of this novel are in the first half that plays with Charlie becoming very important in Hollywood. There is a light-hearted fun to Charlie's second life that the novel loses once we figure out what is going on. It is not that I don't like the second half. I liked the whole book but my favorite moments were Charlie Two enjoying the fun of getting a second chance. I think the less you know about the second half the better.

So I am going to try to dance around spoilers as best I can but once Charlie figures out he is not the only one to time loop he also discovers he can do it again. Of course, this is more time and multiverse hoping, than just time. This happens when he meets Albert Einstein who apparently has figured out ways to loop back from our future, this leads to a comical part of the book when Charlie and Einstein write their timelines version of Back to the Future.

As a PKD scholar, I like the Philip K Dick influences which are not just moments when he appears as a character. Charlie doesn't begin the book in our reality, some of the coolest moments in the book for me were tiny revelations that show us this. It is not super clear that Charlie was ever in our multi-verse but he is clearly trying to make a better reality to settle in. And again in that sense, the novel comes full circle back to wish fulfillment.

Rewrite is a fun read, I think the second half loses a little steam when it gets complicated. Benford does better than most would with the wacky ideas. I think this book deserves me be a bigger deal. PKD and Heinlein fans should read this for sure not just because the writers we love are characters because Benford is invoking them in all the right ways.

I am working on getting him on the podcast for an interview if so I will edit it in to this post.